Learning about the state we serve
A dugout canoe made from a cottonwood tree in McDaniel Park by Bill Quackenbush, tribal historic preservation officer of the Ho-Chunk Nation, was donated to Dane County Parks in June of 2026. The 22-foot canoe had been used for an annual educational voyage organized by Quackenbush that retraced ancestral Ho-Chunk water routes in Wisconsin. It …
In May, the 2026 Wisconsin Idea Seminar set off on a journey to follow a 900-mile circular path around Wisconsin focusing on the state’s great waterways. Three dozen University of Wisconsin—Madison faculty and staff, many of them new to campus, were on a mission: to meet fellow Wisconsinites in communities along the route and hear …
Each year, undergraduate students in Professor of Design Studies and WIS’15 alumna Marianne Fairbanks’ weaving class create handwoven textiles called “water cloths” that are included in gratitude bundles for Wisconsin Idea Seminar collaborators and hosts. This story by Maggie Ginsberg, writer in the Division of the Arts and WIS’26 alumna, highlights the collaboration and undergraduate students’ reflections on the process.
In this episode of Discover Wisconsin’s The Cabin podcast, Fran Puleo Moyer, associate director of outreach programs in the UW-Madison Office of State Relations and a WIS’25 alumna, introduces listeners to Badger Talks, a UW-Madison program that brings faculty expertise and research insights to communities across Wisconsin on issues that matter most to them. Mark …
Edward Xiong, designer of the 2025 Wisconsin Idea Seminar journey book cover, and three other UW-Madison undergraduates studying textiles and fashion design in the School of Human Ecology traveled to Vietnam for six weeks over the summer for the inaugural 2025 Hmong Design Studies Internship led by Design Studies Professor Jennifer Angus. Students collaborated with …
The Morgridge Center for Public Service is celebrating their 30th anniversary this year! As they commemorate their three decades of connecting campus with community through service, community-based learning and research, they have produced a physical and online magazine featuring stories of leaders, students, and community partners who have been a part of the center’s history …
The SoulFolk Collective is a multidisciplinary research lab led by Jessica Stovall, an assistant professor in the Department of African American Studies, that engages in scholarly inquiry to amplify the voices, stories, and lived realities of Black communities in Wisconsin. The SoulFolk’s current work includes the Black Madison Archive project, an interactive map and oral …
Morgan Jerald, assistant professor of psychology, discusses cultivating curiosity and the value of interdisciplinary collaboration in this L&S faculty interview. Dr. Jerald’s research, rooted in Black feminist scholarship, examines the influence of the media and other sociocultural factors on Black women’s gender beliefs, health, and sexual well-being.
On the last day of the 2025 Wisconsin Idea Seminar, Angela Johnson, teaching faculty in the Art Department, mentioned her upcoming trip to Nepal to Jay Stokes, King-Morgridge Scholars Program manager in the International Division. Johnson would be leading two bookmaking workshops in Kathmandu with Edgewood College’s Artistic Heritage in Nepal Program. It just so …
Kevin Masarik is a groundwater education specialist with the University of Wisconsin-Madison Division of Extension and the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. He has assisted tens of thousands of well owners through locally organized well water testing programs. The benefits of these programs are twofold: individual well owners have a better understanding of how to manage …